


Nails on a Chalkboard

by Mirror_Face



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different Mastermind (Dangan Ronpa), Gen, Mastermind Maizono Sayaka, kind of a character study???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:34:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23726155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirror_Face/pseuds/Mirror_Face
Summary: The world had exploded, and a new school year had started.(At the end of it all, she appeared in all her flash and flair, all eyes on her. And yet, there was no recognition in their eyes. They didn’t know her, of course they didn’t. Their memories were gone, after all.And it was all her fault.)Bitterness was mistaken for despair.
Relationships: Maizono Sayaka & Naegi Makoto
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	Nails on a Chalkboard

**Author's Note:**

> This took me way too long to write...
> 
> But, at least it's done (despite how lazy I got in the middle part).

Everyday, Sayaka had the luxury of knowing that people loved her. That if she were to spontaneously explode, people would remember her for quite a while. (She also knew that no one would cry real tears for her, just feel the distant sadness of seeing a fictional character die.)

People always called her lucky, and she probably was. (But how fleeting happiness can be.)

Being an idol wasn’t important enough to be cried over, enough to be remembered for a bit, but that was it. Fans could claim that they loved her, but that wasn’t really love. Just desire. Just…

(sayaka just wanted to be loved)

Sometimes, after years and years of waiting for something, for some kind of real connection- people get impatient. They get impatient but it’s not really their fault, right? It wasn’t Sayaka’s fault that she wanted something she could never get.

(you can’t just give up on love)

But maybe it was her fault. She could’ve always left, right? She could’ve stopped being ‘the famous pop idol’ and closed the gap. And yet, that legacy would never leave her.

(she was all alone)

(but that was her own fault, really)

  
  


And that was it. That was what led to the world’s destruction. Herself, who couldn’t let go of such a simple wish.

She thought what she was feeling was despair (such an artistic, abstract feeling), it was really just bitterness (how petty).

* * *

Sayaka didn’t have a mother, it was a sad fact that was easy to acknowledge.

Sayaka didn’t have a mother, though she had always wanted one. ‘A mother’s love’ people called it. She missed that type of love, despite never having it in the first place.

She had a father, but he never seemed to have the time for her (nor a strong enough heart to love her). Her early life felt isolated. She didn’t know what to do to make her loneliness stop.

And so she didn’t. It was just too much of an impossible goal. She couldn’t bother her father to request such frivolous words like “I love you”. It would’ve felt too fake anyways, too forced. She wanted his love to come naturally. (In the end, he never really did tell her “I love you”. Maybe she really wasn’t worth his love.)

But then school started, and little Sayaka couldn’t help but get excited. There would be people to talk to there. Possible friends that she could cherish for all her life.

In the end, school was okay. Just simply fine. She had friends, but she couldn’t bring herself to really like them. They seemed much more closer to each other, and sometimes she would get jealous when they wouldn’t invite her to things.

(nobody wanted to talk to the girl with a dead mother and absent father)

Sayaka just wanted to be loved. (everyone loved the pretty girls on the front of magazines and album covers, with beautiful voices as they sang generic love songs)

Sayaka had a dream.

* * *

It was surprising how naturally being an idol came to her. They said she was a prodigy of some sort.

By her second year of middle school, her name was already being spread around the country by lovestruck teenagers. It was oddly fulfilling, her new job.

So there it was, a new chapter of her life. Finally opened, finally passing. Sayaka felt different somehow, like she always had something to come back to.

She was loved by everyone.

(But still, she didn’t feel loved)

There was too large of a gap between her and her fans. She was the entertainer, they were her audience. It was more adoration than love that they felt for her. They were just fans.

And her bandmates, her partners, her fellow idols who she worked side-by-side with practically everyday? They were more rivals than friends. More people who would abandon you if you broke a leg. They were just co-workers, and she knew that any deep connection that she somehow felt with any of them was more than likely just her imagination.

(just another sad fact of life)

Eventually, she was able to trick herself into believing that she was okay with fake love. At least it stood for something. At least it was  _ something _ .

That was until the crane incident.

It was odd, really, how ungracefully he shooed away that crane. How he saved it from such an uncertain future of being lost in a school, surrounded by scared students. How much love was shown to a bird.

(she was sure that anyone in his position would’ve saved the bird, but would anyone have saved her, lost and afraid?)

It was that event, pointless in the grand scheme of everything, that changed her life forever. Watching that boy be so kind to just a simple bird. He showed that bird more love than her father had ever given her. His soft, kind eyes felt more real than her fans’.

It was there that Sayaka decided that there really was something wrong with her.

* * *

Sayaka was accepted into Hope’s Peak Academy. It was kind of surprising, for a brief moment until she realized that it made perfect sense. She was the most popular pop idol around, after all.

What was actually the most surprising thing was just how weird the students were at Hope’s Peak. She had expected a few oddballs, but it seemed that almost every ultimate had some kind of ridiculous quirk. There was the baseball star that wanted to be a musician, the Lolita gambler with a short temper, the two twins that were nothing alike, and many more. Whether it be her class or any other.

However, the face that caught Sayaka’s eye was a familiar one. Makoto Naegi. The ultimate lucky student. He stood out just because he was the most normal of everyone else.

It was the boy who saved the crane.

(what a coincidence)

She didn’t know what to say to him when their eyes met for the first time in the classroom, so she didn’t say anything. He blushed when she stared.

Later, she asked if he recognized her (of course he did). They talked a bit, and he seemed nice enough- if not a little starstruck. He was normal to others, but to her he represented a lot. Whether or not he represented something good or bad depended.

He was the one who could show a crane enough love to save it. Was he special though? Would just anyone save the lost and alone crane? (Would Makoto save her if he knew how lonely she was?)

Sayaka was curious, intrigued, and a little bit scared of how unique Makoto really was. And yet, she decided to be his friend. Just for the chance that he would save her from the loneliness. From the despair of not being loved.

And so, she tried to be his friend.

However there was still a disconnect. Did Makoto really see Sayaka as a friend? He seemed so stiff around her, so nervous. He was more familiar with the mysterious detective than her.

Was their friendship even real?

(One day it finally hit her, as she looked at Makoto’s soft brown eyes- as she thought about the crane. Was it really kindness that made him save the lost bird? It seemed odd, the idea that it was mere kindness that made him reach out. 

And then she realized that she had mistaken pity for kindness.)

  
  


Their friendship ended silently, Sayaka too upset to even talk to Makoto.

(it was her fault she was all alone)

* * *

Her decision to end the world wasn’t exactly sudden, it was creeping. It came as small thoughts at first. But then they expanded and grew until Sayaka knew exactly how she would end the world.

(it was stupid and selfish and yet she did it)

It was simple. So surprisingly simple.

(once she found out about the human experimentation, she really did have no regrets)

She released all of their terrible secrets out into the world anonymously, scaring everyone. Because that was there hope, wasn’t it? Was that how it worked? Without hope, they would plunge into despair. (But she still had hope, right?)

The riots then started, and the principal (who would later die) locked her class up into the school. (What a hopeless idiot.)

She killed him. It was simple, no one suspected her anyway. It was way too simple to be real.

(but it was, and that was kind of sad)

* * *

The killing game was simple. She trapped her classmates in the boardered up school and told them to kill each other. It took a while, but eventually it picked up speed.

And Sayaka just sat there watching, taking in their despair. She’d erased all of their memories of school life using some of the technology that was once owned by the ultimate neurologist (he was probably dead), so they couldn’t possibly know each other. It was odd to watch.

And yet, it seemed that her classmates were made for a killing game, they all had something to live for. They all had ambitions to live up to. The game was perfect.

(she tried not to constantly wonder what the point of it all was, because, despite everything, she was the least motivated of anyone in the school) 

It was wonderful, she told herself, and pretended to not feel somewhat sad at her classmates’ deaths.

(what was the point of all this again?)

  
  


Makoto Naegi was still alive. She didn’t know whether she should feel happy or upset. She settled on feeling nothing, since she’d gotten used to that.

* * *

They had figured it all out. She told them everything.

It was time for her to die.

She imagined music being played. Dramatic, hearty, a little bit classical. It was the type of music that Sayaka didn’t particularly like.

It was rather fitting.

The sound of her not-there music filled her mind completely, washing her away from the desolate world that she had created. Makoto, talking over the music, offered to let her live. It almost made her laugh. Never again would she have to be pitied by him. Never ever again.

Now she just wanted to die faster.

He begged for her not to die, despite not even knowing her (despite her knowing him).

That time, she really did laugh.

(she didn’t deserve it- she was unlovable, after all)

And so, she sent herself to her death, her empty, dead heart beating quickly in her ears- a sound as terrible as nails on a chalkboard. 

The music stopped rather suddenly.

  
  
  


(She had called it despair, but in the end, that was just a lie she told herself. Sayaka was just too scared to admit how deeply her bitterness ran.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm probably just going to focus all my energy on Black and White Checkers now, I'm halfway done with this super short chapter. But they'll probably be a few mastermind aus coming around. I have a really weird one that no one has done before that I'm interested in writing (hint: a male from V3), but that might take a while considering how busy I am.


End file.
